90 percent of local research outside of country: Matainaho

Caption: Chief Executive Officer of the Science and Technology Secretariat Council, Professor Teatulohi Matainaho

By MATTHEW VARI

Sunday, March 1, 2015 (Sunday Chronicle, PNG) 

CHIEF Executive Officer of the Science and Technology Secretariat Council, Professor Teatulohi Matainaho, revealed plans afoot to regulate protect the body of research done in the country.

He said that since the secretariat’s establishment in 2013, the state has taken a bold move to recognized research as a basis for effective development.

“We are thankful that the government as of 2013 has decided to establish the Science and Technology Council, and the Secretariat is actually a milestone for the development of PNG,” Matainaho said.

“No country in the world can exist without knowledge, and it comes about through research and the development of science and technology in any situation.”

“PNG is a hub for knowledge because it’s filled with resources, materials which have formed which have formed the basis for researchers who have come to this country so we want to address that issue.”

He said that with the support of the Minister for Higher Education, Research Science and Technology, they hope to get a better coordination of research in the country and to get the government to have a clear focus to research.

“For a long time we actually have not developed a research plan, and there is no science and technology strategy in this country. We basically provided a flexible environment where people have come and without due attention carried out valuable research and we do not even follow up on trying to understand the outcome of the research,” he said.

“At this point in time the preliminary indication that we have indicates that the large part of research done in PNG, the knowledge that is generated in this country through research is not in the country.”

“About up to 90% of the knowledge actually resides outside of the country, and that is one of the situations that we need to rectify because it will impact on our ability to access information which is actually used by others to advance their science, social, industries and so forth.”

The CEO added that there is the need to start looking at ways to create a program that allows research to be done in this country with the support of outsiders to assist conduct research and implement our program so that the expertise developed remains in the country to improve critical systems like health, agriculture, fisheries, forestry, and other sectors.

“We started this last year which ensures that the universities are better coordinated, so the government will have information that will be a pool to inform the government on what is happening, which will enable the government to establish a clear plan and clear sense of priority of what the kind of research we should be doing so that it will clearly be directed to addressing issues of our people in this country.”

“Our people need to be lifted in their economic and social situation, providing opportunities through knowledge we have.”

“We are highly dependent on imported knowledge and imported technology in this country- in our shops there is very little coming from Papua New Guinea in them in the manufacturing industry and it demonstrates a lack of creativity, lack of the ability where we are the basic consumers of innovation.”